Within property and casualty insurance, key processes like claims, policy administration, accounting and others are still largely manual in nature, and they are all routine, repetitive and mundane.

Many of these processes are made 90% more efficient by software bots built on robotic process automation (RPA) technologies. The automation of these simple processes has helped many insurers improve quality, freeing up time for their agents and advisors to focus on more critical processes.

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Why aren't these manual processes automated?

There are various reasons for this. Most processes require a user to work between multiple systems built on different technologies like web, mainframes, java, excel, pdf and others. There are also external systems that are beyond the control of most companies. The re-engineering and integration costs required to accomplish this are very high and often not feasible. Many companies have limited resources and too little bandwidth for projects that don't produce a timely return. Hence, they have continued to complete these processes manually.

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How does RPA differ from the traditional automation techniques?

RPA is the new wave of technology that can mimic human actions on software applications — a set of programs called "bots" that automate keystrokes and clicks. It does not require changes to underlying systems and can work between many disparate technologies. You might consider a "bot" as a digital employee that can run 24×7 and help increase efficiency, improve quality, reduce errors, increase sales and enhance customer satisfaction.

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What are some specific use cases?

In auto insurance, windshield claims are those low value claims that require an agent to complete a series of well-defined steps between multiple systems. These steps are mainly to validate the claim and documents, policy coverage, deductibles and a few other rules. This results in increased processing time, which is prone to errors. By deploying RPA, the entire process can be automated without any changes to the existing insurance management system or other systems used by agents. Over 80% of claims can then be settled without any human intervention. In addition, straight through processing of third-party claims have utilized RPA with similar results.